


i'll still be here

by Harfish



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Drabble, Episode: s01e11 Combat, F/M, Second person POV, doing character studies on owen keeps me breathing, short n' sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-06 01:15:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1839040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harfish/pseuds/Harfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>she was a vision in red, and that's all you care to see.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>a look inside a caged doctor's mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'll still be here

Your gun’s not in your pocket. Try as you might, reach right in, there’s no filling that empty space.

Think. It’s what you do, what you’re paid for.

Breathe, first. Magazine’s empty, otherwise. Spent, smoked out.

You’re spent, too, rent open like glass, or a heart on the butcher’s table. Bled dry.

There’s red on its claws from the earlier bastard. Finger paintings for the dumber life-forms, except the paint-pot ran before the drawing was complete.

You can’t smell the paint anymore. 

It’s inside you, anyway. This smell, this red, this endless rage you wear like a secret. If they looked - really looked - at the curl of your lips, the way you hold your shoulders, they could read you like a book.

They just prefer you like a diary, you suppose. Need-to-know. 

Burn after reading, burn the evidence. 

You’d always wanted to be cremated when you died. No mess, no fuss, just scatter you to the wind so it can carry you home. That chance’s blown to hell, but the freezers in the morgue are close enough to home as you have nowadays.

Who’ll keep up tabs on that blowfish culture you were growing? Who’ll know about it? Who’ll give a shit?

You’ve got more important things on your mind. Like nothing.

It’s all you’ve wanted for weeks now. It’s right here, a paradox in red, your nothing. End of its claws’ll break this spell.

Or you’ll beat the shit out of it. Either way, you win. You lose. 

It growls, somewhere in front of you, momentarily confused by the lack of conflict in your stance. The slack of your hands seems wrong to what little brain it has. Your spine slouches, your vitals are laid bare, and this is the most alive you’ve felt since the Rift.

(You don’t want it anymore.)

Everything slows, stops. Black overtakes red, fear staining like ink.

The door busts open-  
and you come back to life.

**Author's Note:**

> treat me gently, folks, this is my first step into the torch wood fic-verse, cliche as it may be.   
> i haven't had the motivation to write fic about anything in a while, so this's been a welcome breath of fresh air into my lazy muse.


End file.
